The Brody Commons, Geisel Floor 1, West Wing display cases are showcasing some of the engaging projects created by students last year while participating in de-stressing activities. It also features the calendar of pending library activities so students will again have the opportunity to engage in some creative play during the academic year. Many of these activities will take place in the student focused East Commons on Geisel floor 2, a very popular study space with students.

What do teeny-tiny pianos and the Cat in the Hat Songbook have in common? They are part of this year’s Toy Piano Festival!

The popular fest, now in its 17th year, will feature two performances this fall, the first at Geisel Library in the Seuss Room on September 5 at noon, and a special collaboration with the San Diego Public Library on Sunday, September 10 at 2:30 pm in the Neil Morgan Auditorium.

Since 2000, the UC San Diego Library has hosted the Toy Piano Festival every September, to pay homage to the September 5 birthday of John Cage, the first composer to write a serious work for toy pianos. In May of 2001, the Library of Congress issued a subject heading and call number for toy piano scores, at the request of Paulson, the Toy Piano Collection, and the events at Geisel Library. The call number is: M 175 T69.

The toy piano collection at Geisel Library consists of commissioned scores, literature and recordings, and actual toy pianos, ranging from simple four-note novelty keyboards to three-octave baby grands. A selection of toy piano scores and instruments will be on stage at the San Diego Public Library event.

Both performances are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Scott Paulson at spaulson@ucsd.edu or (858) 822-5758.

UC San Diego Visuals Arts Instructor, Audrey Hope, has installed a selection of her sculptures in Geisel’s 1st Floor West underground Library gardens.

The Light Wells exhibit consists of three small sculptures that incorporate textiles soaked in plaster and paint with photographs printed on polyester.

The photographs depict moments when the divisions between inside and outside collapse, when nature is brought indoors and pushes its way out.

The Geisel Library’s light wells, architectural features constructed in the early 1990s, are a tender example of the ways that we draw nature indoors in order to remind ourselves of the world outside.

In addition, Hope has assembled approximately 50 books that will be available alongside the exhibit. These books describe the artist’s points of inspiration, including grottoes and self-taught artist’s gardens. The collection also includes resources about the artists and theories covered in Material and Scale.

Hope is an MFA candidate in the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego. Her works are also on view in the Office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities and the Office of Graduate Studies.

Set in iconic Geisel Library, fundraiser will support growth of ‘smart’ learning spaces

She first took the world by storm as an international best-selling author. Then, she became known as a fierce champion of the corner bookstore, those nearly extinct havens for bibliophiles who cherish the opportunity to talk about and be around books. Ann Patchett will share her remarkable life and work as a New York Times bestselling author, independent bookstore owner and literary advocate on Friday, Sept. 8, as part of the University of California San Diego’s Dinner in the Library, an annual benefit to support the UC San Diego Library.

“An Evening with Ann Patchett” will take place in UC San Diego’s iconic Geisel Library building from 6-9:30 p.m. All proceeds will support the Geisel Library Revitalization Initiative, an initiative to transform and revitalize the interior public spaces of Geisel Library. Because of the significance of the initiative to student learning and the campus overall, Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla will match gifts raised up to $1 million, doubling the impact of donations.

“Support from Dinner in the Library makes an incredible impact on our ability to sustain and grow the UC San Diego Library as a hub of discovery and learning for our campus and community,” said Chancellor Khosla. “As the intellectual heart of our university, the Library helps spark the groundbreaking work of our faculty and students, whose breakthroughs make waves across the globe.”

Patchett is the author of seven highly acclaimed novels, including Bel Canto, which received the Orange Prize and the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award, as well as Commonwealth, State of Wonder and The Magician’s Assistant. She has also written three books of nonfiction, including Truth & Beauty, What Now? and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, from the Book Sense Book of the Year to a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Read more…

At a time when media are being discredited as purveyors of “fake news” and labeled as “the enemy of the people”, it is critical to remember the importance of fact-based civic debate for our democracies. The “What Do You Think?” exhibit was created by students in Professor Fernando Dominguez Rubio’s Communication 10: Communication and Democracy class this past Spring Quarter. What you see here is a wall filled with students’ voices defending their arguments and political views on issues as diverse as media bias, gender equality, election results and racial discrimination. This wall is a demonstration that it is possible to hold strong views and generate civic discourse based on facts, reasons, and arguments, rather than on accusations, falsities, and insults.

We invite you to read the wall and we challenge you to contribute to the conversation by leaving your own responses. Join the conversation!

The exhibit is located in the Geisel Library building, main floor, west wing.

At the end of each quarter the UC San Diego Library hosts the Stress Free Zone to facilitate relaxation and provide snacks during first three days of finals week. Join us on June 12, 13, and 14 in the East Commons (Floor 2) from 7:00 – 9:00 pm (or until the food is gone). Audrey’s Café is partnering with the Library to provide free coffee to students in addition to the Library’s snacks and fresh fruit assortment. While coffee and snacks will be served only at night, de-stressing activities are available all day in the East Commons. Visit library.ucsd.edu/spaces/places-to-study/de-stress/ for more details. In addition to the permanent installations of the walk stations, chess, Quoridor, and scrabble gaming tables, the Library has foam rollers to stretch muscles and to help release tension.

Need a book from the Library but don’t have time to traverse the stacks? The UC San Diego Library has made it easier than ever for students, faculty, and the rest of the campus community to access print collections with the newly reinstated paging service and Self-Service Hold Shelves.

You can now browse materials online and request available items via Roger, the Library catalog. After submitting your request, Library staff will retrieve your materials and make them available for pick-up on the newly installed Self-Service Hold Shelves near the Front Desks in both the Geisel and Biomedical Library Buildings, saving you the time and effort of traversing across areas of the Library searching for needed materials. For those of you who enjoy browsing books in the stacks, you may certainly continue to do so.

Once you collect your requested items from the Self-Service Hold Shelves, you may then check out the materials via one of the adjacent self-checkout machines. However, if you have questions or wish to speak to library staff, you can take your items to the nearby Front Desk for check out.

Our goal is that these new services will streamline the library experience for users, resulting in the quick, no-hassle retrieval of materials. Library staff are always on hand to answer questions and assist with the process. Stay tuned for a survey link in which you can provide us with feedback and suggestions to improve the new services.

Immediate questions about the paging service can be directed to staff by calling (858) 534-0134 or contacting LibraryBorrowing@ucsd.edu.

Please join us for a lecture with Ken Wissoker, Editorial Director of Duke University Press and director of the Intellectual Publics Program at City University of New York (CUNY). Mr. Wissoker will discuss changes in publishing and the academy, how to navigate them and will outline how to write a scholarly book. In addition, he will explore the many differences between research presented in dissertation form versus a book and share concrete tips on making changes in form, style, content, and intended audience.

Monday, May 22, 2017

4:00 – 6:00 PM

Geisel Library, Seuss Room

Ken Wissoker

Ken Wissoker, a renowned editor in scholarly publishing, is a noted speaker and consultant on all aspects of academic publishing and the contemporary intellectual landscape. He has been involved in the publishing industry since 1979 and has been Editorial Director at Duke University Press since 1997. In the fall of 2014 he also joined the CUNY Graduate Center as director of their new “Intellectual Publics” program. At CUNY Ken presents public conversations that facilitate thinking and debate across the disciplines while continuing in his role at Duke University Press.

This lecture is free and open to the public and sponsored by the UC San Diego Ethnic Studies Department, the UC San Diego Library, the UC San Diego Institute for Arts and Humanities, and the UC San Diego Anthropology Department.

One of the latest offering in the Geisel Building are the charging lockers located on the west side of the lobby near the photocopier. The charging lockers are secured by a digital code set by the user. There is a four hour limit per charging session.